But figuring out what to do with a ship’s reactor is far from the only hurdle. People must be convinced of the safety of nuclear energy and technology, says Alves de Andrade. Despite excellent safety records at many nuclear sites around the world, public perception understandably remains dominated by the Chernobyl and Fukushima disasters, as well as concerns about what to do with radioactive waste.
And while there are many nuclear reactors operating at sea right now, they are usually on ships with the highest security in the world. Commercial ships are occasionally victims of piracy and accidents, including big fires And explosions– the thought of adding nuclear fuel to such scenarios is unlikely to be met with enthusiasm.
The task of transitioning to a world where nuclear-powered ships are commonly welcomed into commercial ports is “not trivial,” said Stephen Turnock, a professor of maritime fluid dynamics at the University of Southampton. “You have to have protocols to say what would happen in the event of an emergency involving a nuclear-powered ship,” he explains.
Simon Bullock, a shipping researcher at the University of Manchester, says there isn’t enough regulatory framework to define how nuclear ships would operate in the commercial sector globally, including details of who would bear responsibility for any accidents. Would it be the shipowner, the ship operator, the manufacturer of the nuclear reactor, or the country where the ship is registered, also known as the flag state? There are six “decade-long problems” of this kind involving nuclear ships that the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and other agencies would have to solve if nuclear-powered commercial ships ever became widespread, he says.
Liz Shaw, an IMO spokesperson, says that “there is a long history of IMO cooperating and coordinating with other entities where appropriate.” There are guidelines on how member states can submit proposals to update existing regulations, she adds.
The crews on nuclear ships would also require special training and expertise, increasing the cost of operating such ships. Is it worth taking on all these challenges given the need to decarbonise now? Probably not, says Bullock. “The most important thing here is the next 10 years,” he says, referring to the urgency to tackle emissions and climate change now. “Nuclear can’t do anything about that.”
Even the Norwegian NuProShip project will not convert its first demonstration ship until 2035. Meanwhile, other fuels with low or zero emissions are already being used in ships, from methanol to ammonia, electric batteries and hydrogen. None of these are perfect and they will all be vying for supremacy in the years to come. Nuclear, with its many complications, is “potentially a dangerous distraction” from the main horse race, says Bullock.
For what it’s worth, Turnock’s money is in hydrogen. Last month, sportswear brand Nike launched a hydrogen-powered ship in Europe, and there are several others ships on hydrogen of a similar size already sailing.
But looking further ahead, shipowners may eventually turn seriously to nuclear technology. Here’s a fun fact. The original savannah, a steamship, was also a technological pioneer. Built in 1818 in the US, it was the first steamship to cross the Atlantic Ocean. But due to its huge engines, it could barely carry cargo and thus was considered unprofitable. But within decades, steam reigned over the waves.
So while the NS savannah may seem like a tantalizing ephemeral experiment shrouded in the long-faded atomic idealism of the 1950s, perhaps nuclear-powered merchant ships will somehow come to dominate. As President Eisenhower discovered, dreams are one thing. Then there is the future.
